‘What if I wind up fielding complaints from your Foreign Secretary?’
‘You won’t, I guarantee it. I’m going to meet his boss.’
Sixty-five
Mr Arnold Solomons was expecting him. Before driving through from Edinburgh, Proud had taken the precaution of phoning, to make sure that the man was willing to talk to him. He was, although conversation was not what was uppermost in the chief constable’s mind. More than anything, he wanted to see another place where Claude Bothwell had lived, to see if the man had left any trace of himself.
As Ina Leslie had said, Dundyvan Drive was ‘up Broomhill’, a left turn off a twisting road that climbed up from the Clydeside Expressway. The street was lined with leafless trees, and seemed quiet; number fourteen was a red-brick semi-detached bungalow, an unusual type of house for that part of Glasgow where most of the older dwellings are stone-built. Proud parked in front and walked up the driveway.
The man who answered the doorbell’s summons would have been tall in his youth, but a spinal condition had given him a permanent, hunched stoop, so that he had to twist his neck awkwardly to look up at his visitor. ‘Mr Proud?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Mr Solomons, and thank you for seeing me. I hope it isn’t an inconvenience.’
‘Not at all; if anything it’s a convenience. It’s given me an excuse not to go into the shop.’
‘What sort of shop?’
‘A jeweller’s, up in Hyndland.’ His eyes took on a wary look. ‘You said you’re a policeman, when you called. Do you have anything to prove that?’
Proud smiled at the man’s caution and handed him his warrant card, watching as Solomons peered at it through thick spectacles, taking in his reaction as he read it
‘It’s Sir James, is it? I beg your pardon, Chief Constable. This is a very puzzling honour. Come into my parlour, and I’ll get the tea organised.’ He led him straight into a receiving room with a bay window that looked out on to the street, then stepped back into the hall and called out, ‘Rachel, my visitor’s arrived.’
Proud guessed that the organisation of the tea had just taken place. He glanced round the room, noting that practically every flat surface was occupied by painted china dogs. He looked at the old jeweller as he settled into a well-used armchair, his face relaxing as the strain was taken off his deformed spine. He tried to guess the man’s age, and decided he had to be in his mid-seventies, although his disability may have had an ageing effect.
‘I haven’t had a policeman in this house for over twenty years,’ he mused. ‘Not that I had done anything myself, you understand. There was a robbery in the shop, and I was beaten up. Bastards hit me with baseball bats; that was the start of my back trouble. Anyway, the CID came here to interview me when I was recovering, to get an inventory of what was taken.’
‘Did they arrest the robbers?’
Solomons’ laugh was derisory. ‘That lot? They couldn’t have found their arses with both hands. No, they never caught them, and I never got any of my property back. I’m not at the top end of the business, Sir James. Most of the stuff probably wound up being sold on market stalls down south. My insurers coughed up, although they made me install expensive security systems, both at the shop and here.’ He paused as a white-haired, bird-like woman came into the room, carrying a tea tray that looked as if it could have been silver. Proud rose to help her, but she placed it unaided on a table in front of the fireplace. ‘This is my wife,’ the old man said. ‘Rachel, this is Sir James Proud.’
The old woman gave a tiny bow as she shook the chief constable’s hand. ‘Very pleased to meet you,’ she whispered.
‘We had our golden wedding two years ago,’ Solomons told him, as she poured the tea from a pot that matched the tray.
‘Congratulations,’ Proud replied. ‘Mine’s fifteen years away; I hope I make it.’
‘You look a pretty fit chap; I’m sure you will. Now, how can we help you?’
The chief constable accepted a cup of tea from Mrs Solomons, and added a little milk. ‘I’m trying to find someone who lived in this house before you,’ he said. ‘His name was Claude Bothwell and he taught in Jordanhill School. He was a tenant here in the late fifties: I understand that you bought it in 1964.’
‘Sixty-five,’ the old lady corrected him. ‘I’m better with dates than Arnold.’
‘She is,’ her husband admitted. ‘Mind, we were tenants ourselves before that. The landlord was Mr A. E. Pickard, a very famous man in Glasgow: he owned all sorts of property, flats, houses, theatres, cinemas, everything. He was a great man, Mr Pickard; famous for the jokes he played on people. My father knew him well; he told him that Rachel and I were needing a house, rather than the flat we were in, as our second child was on the way, and he offered us this place. Remember when we went to meet him, Rachel?’
The old lady smiled. ‘Oh, yes. We were shown into his office to sign the tenancy, but there was no one there. So we sat down in chairs opposite this great big desk and waited for, oh, it must have been ten minutes at least, neither of us saying anything, but with Arnold getting fidgetier and fidgetier. We were both wondering where he was when all of a sudden he climbed out from the kneehole under the desk, all smiles. “I fooled you there, didn’t I?” was what he said. And, you know, he must have been about eighty-five at the time.’
‘Eccentric,’ Solomons declared. ‘That’s what he was, the last of the great eccentrics.’
‘Well, maybe not the last, dear,’ his wife murmured, glancing at the china dogs. ‘There’s still you, in your own quiet way.’
‘When did you move in?’ Proud asked her.
‘1960; in the autumn.’
‘That’s right,’ said the old man. ‘We signed the lease, then Mr Pickard gave us the keys and drove us out to see the house in his Rolls-Royce. He owned this one, the one next door and the two beyond that, but he walked us up the drive to here, and said, “This is the best of them all; a palace fit for a prince.” I’m sure he said that to all his tenants, but who cares? He was a great man, and he made you feel good.’
‘Do you recall him saying anything about the previous tenant?’
‘No, I can’t say that I do.’
‘Yes, you can,’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘There was the garden shed.’
‘Oh, yes; ach, my memory’s shot to hell these days. After he showed us through the house, Mr Pickard took us out to the back garden. In the far corner there was a shed, a big timber thing with windows in it, so new that the maker’s stickers were still on the glass. I asked him if we would be expected to pay for it, since it wasn’t mentioned in the lease. He laughed and said no, that we could thank the previous tenant for it. He told us that the man had asked him if he could put a shed in the garden, and that he’d said he could. Then, less than a month later, the fellow came back to him. He told him that he and his wife were moving from Glasgow to a new job, paid him all the rent that was due and handed back the keys. “Imagine,” he said, “paying all that money on a new shed and then just walking away and leaving it. And here’s me thinking that teachers are poorly paid.” You’re right, Rachel, there was that, right enough. When I think about it, I can still hear Mr Pickard laughing.’
‘What happened to it?’ asked Proud.
‘What do you mean? It’s still there. The thing’ll outlast us.’
Sixty-six
As Skinner cleared security in Thames House and moved towards the lifts, he sensed that he was being watched. He glanced to his left, quickly enough to catch the gaze of a man still upon him and to see it being averted. There was anger in those eyes, unmistakably. He pressed the call button with a feeling of satisfaction, and was still smiling as he walked into Amanda Dennis’s office.
‘Have you had people tailing me?’ he asked her, straight out.
A slight flush came to her cheeks. ‘The DG asked me to give you an escort,’ she admitted, ‘for your protection.’